MARSHALL — In a January discussion of traffic safety in Marshall, the intersection of Tiger Drive and Minnesota Highway 23 came up as a key area of concern.

“Currently the most concern is in the morning and in the afternoon – as students are arriving at (Marshall High School), and especially as students are leaving school at about 3:15,” Marshall Mayor Bob Byrnes said Tuesday.

One possible way to prevent crashes could be to build a reduced conflict intersection. Marshall city staff will be applying for $400,000 in grant funds to help design a possible J-turn at Tiger Drive and Highway 23.

Marshall City Council members voted unanimously to give their support for a grant application. Marshall Public Works Director Jason Anderson said the proposal already has letters of support from Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall Public Schools and the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

On Tuesday, Anderson made the request to submit an application for a Rural High-Risk Roads grant from the state. The RHRR grant program was created in the 2023 transportation omnibus bill.

Anderson said area stakeholders had expressed support for a J-turn at the Tiger Drive intersection, during a meeting with the Marshall Area Transportation Group and representatives of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Byrnes said area stakeholders were concerned about the high levels of traffic at the intersection before and after school. In addition to regular traffic on Highway 23, students at the high school and SMSU create cross traffic at the intersection. Cars coming off of nearby Commencement Drive also use the Tiger Drive intersection to make U-turns to go south on Highway 23.

“What is happening is, there’s no separation of all those different things going on,” Byrnes said. “There have been accidents there.”

“I saw what I thought to be a lot of support for a J-turn at this intersection,” Anderson said. Of possible options to improve safety at Tiger Drive/Highway 23, a J-turn project would also be a solution more likely to receive funding, representatives of MnDOT said at the meeting.

The city does not plan to apply for funding to build a J-turn at Tiger Drive and Highway 23, Anderson said. The grant application would be for preliminary design work, that could help with future funding requests.

“We worked with MnDOT to come up with an estimated cost of $400,000 for this design work,” and to “vet” the project proposal, Anderson said.

Anderson said the city would be applying for the full $400,000 in grant funding.